Sunday, March 31, 2013

LTC Book Club - Graphic Novels: The Dark Knight RisesThis card was for a Graphic Novel swap. I have always been a fan of graphic novels as well as just a general all around fan of comics. So when this one came up, I had to pick from one of my favorite graphic novels of all time - The Dark Knight Rises. I have been such a fan of Frank Miller's work since I was a teenager and the iconic image from the first issue of this series was so cool. There wasn't much to the carve itself however trying to get the lightening correct was a bit of a challenge. Originally I was just going to stamp the bolt with a separate stamo but the white just didn't come out right on the darker blue card stock and i wanted a brighter white. So in the end i just used a white colored pencil to draw in the lightening. I had a template to try and get it just right to how it looked on the cover.

Game of Thrones: Tyrion LannisterThis card is from the Game of Thrones tracker I joined. Both my wife and I are huge fans of the T.V. series and she has read the books as well so it was fun to host a tracker honoring the second season of this fantasy drama. I love the character of Tyrion Lannister so I immediately gravitated to him as my image. Unfortunately, we are all our own worst critics and I don't think this one came out as well as I had hoped. I know if i was to do this again, it would have come out much better than it did. I was trying something different with the card stock and going with a more old ancient weathered look. The coloring I did with Prismacolor markers. The only thing i did enjoy with this card was the way it was presented. I had found some small brown envelopes and also found a lion wax seal online. I ended up enclosing the card in the envelopes with this seal on the back and i also carved the Lannister family sigil on the front of the envelope. So overall it was a fun piece. I just wish the carve turned out a little bit better.

Layers: General UrsusThis was for a Layers swap that I joined. Obviously there are so many designs and themes to choose from. With layering, it's always about getting the right combination of layers and aligning them correctly. I had seen this image on a poster and had always been a fan of the Planet of the Apes so i decided to have a crack at reprinting this one. This image really didn't come out the way i had envisioned. The layers were just ok. I could have probably done a better job with some of my lines and thinning them out a bit especially around the face on all three layers. And the alignment of the stamps was a tad tricky and i could have done a better job making sure they fit more precisely but in the end it still turned out to be a cool striking image if you are a fan of the films.

Tim Burton Characters: Martian from Mars AttacksThis was for the Tim Burton LTC swap I was in. There were just so many cool characters to choose from and I had a hard time deciding. I was not as happy with this one as I had hoped. Overall it came out decent but looking back I wished I had chosen a different Burton character. I guess i have always had a love hate relationship with Mars Attacks. There are many other Tim Burton films I find much more appealing and enjoy. So this is probably why I feel less strongly about this carve. However, the carve wasn't too difficult. I added some colored pencils to the alien face and added some clear embossing for his helmet.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

DC Universe Villians: The Joker/BaneThis was for the DC Universe Villians tracker. I just couldn't decide when picking a villian since there are so many great ones to pick from so i decided to do two. The Joker is so iconic and once i saw this cool line drawing of him, i had to take it on. But the Bane character in the comics was also so intriguing so i thoght i would throw in another card for the swap. I thought this was a simple quick carve to crank out. I decided with The Joker at the last minute to add a splash of red color around his mouth. This was done with a simple watercolor wash.

The Bane card was inked with a Cobalt Blue and then i added some flesh color with colored pencilsto give it some depth.The back of the Joker card i used a real playing card image for the background. I rounded the corners to make the overall card appear to be an actual playing card. On the back of Bane's card, i gave some historical bio of his character and where his first appearance in comics was.

DC Universe Heroes: Oliver Queen/Green ArrowThis card was for the DC Universe Heroes tracker. DC Comics have been around for years and as a kid i always enjoyed some of the cool characters from some of these books. One of my favorites was Green Arrow. I always thought his green costume and ability to shoot arrows was interesting. I liked his King Arthur kind of Robin Hood look. I found this image from one of the covers to his comic. I loved the looking straight at you feel to this image. This was a simple carve but then i used markers to do all the shading and coloring to this image. I really enjoyed how his face turned out and the eyes. This is a favorite carve of mine.